Videos have revolutionized the world of Internet marketing, and its popularity is only slated to grow more. More than 60% of businesses use videos as a marketing tool today, which is a 66% increase from the last year. A survey conducted by Wyzowl reports that nearly 91% of these businesses plan to either increase or maintain their spending this year. So what is it that makes videos so powerful in marketing? And what can you do to make sure your marketing and promotional videos reach your target audience? Here’s a quick look at three quick and easy ways to make your video content as search engine friendly as possible.

69% of Consumers Choose to Watch Video Content.

If you are a complete novice to video marketing, you first need to understand why videos are so much more effective than plain text in improving sales and driving conversion. Apparently, watching videos doesn’t require as much reasoning as it would to derive meaning through reading. The human brain is hardwired so that it can process videos 60,000 times faster than text. Add to that the natural human tendencies to avoid laborious cognitive strain and to get emotionally affected by something they see in a video more than text, it is no wonder that the love for videos is so extensive and deep.

Consumer data show that 69% of people would choose a video over text to learn about a product or a service. Similarly, if given an option between talking to a customer support team and watching an explainer video for solving a problem, 68% of people would choose the latter option. Moreover, nearly three-quarters of the people who watch an explainer video end up buying the product or service.

Not surprising when you consider the fact that more than 75% of businesses that have used videos for marketing and promotion say that their videos have given them a good return on their investment. While 93% say that these videos have helped their customers understand their product or service better, 62% believe that videos have increased the amount of organic traffic their websites receive.

3 Ways to Make Videos More Search Engine Friendly

If amazing content were all you needed to rise above your competitors and rank higher in terms of search engine rankings, life would be so much easier! Unfortunately, that is not the case. In addition to basic search engine optimization techniques such as using descriptive file names, adding relevant keywords to your title, met tags, and description, and using the Comments feed section to its maximum potential, there are also other ways through which you can maximize the popularity of your videos.

#1 The Magic of Closed Captions

A study conducted by Discovery Digital Networks in 2013 found a marked increase in views for YouTube videos that had closed captions, when compared to videos that did not. Since search engines cannot “watch” your videos to understand what it is all about, they depend on the accompanying text data such as closed captions for indexing, which makes it more likely that your videos will be ranked higher in search engine results if you add captions to your videos.

While you have the added benefit of making your videos accessible to millions of people who are deaf or have hearing disabilities, they are not the only ones who use closed captions. About 80% of the people who use closed captions do so because it makes it easier for them to enjoy videos in an unfavorable environment like a noisy train or a quiet library.

#2 Use Transcripts on Web Pages

Transcripts offer yet another useful way to help your videos climb up in search engine rankings. Similar to captions, transcripts are used by search engines to index your webpage and thus contribute to an organic increase in web traffic. In fact, a study conducted by Liveclicker found that the addition of transcripts to web pages increased revenue by about 16%. Also, transcripts make the content more useful for people in the audience who would like to skim through or refer the text to prepare for an exam and for others who have hearing disabilities.

#3 Add Multi-lingual Subtitles to Your Video Content

Of course, we cannot disregard the importance of adding subtitles to your videos. Having your closed captions translated into multiple languages improves accessibility and helps thousands of viewers from around the world enjoy your videos. If numbers are what it takes to convince you, studies have indicated that the addition of subtitles to a video can increase viewer engagement time by more than 40%. Subtitles have also been shown to increase the number of people who watch a video to completion by 80%.

If you find yourself intrigued by all these possibilities for improving your video search engine rankings, don’t forget to check out this brand new infographic from Take 1 Transcription for tons of useful info along with some amazing facts and figures about video marketing!

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Toby Dean works on behalf of Take1 in content creation and marketing. He creates engaging graphics and content that help businesses stand out from the crowd. Over the past 7 years has worked with dozens of SME's in both an agency and freelance capacity.

NOTE: Opinions expressed in this article are those of the contributing author and not necessarily that of TubularInsights.com